WHAT THINGS COST
How much does an SEO audit cost?
A one-off price, a five-day clock, and a list at the end of it rather than a subscription.
Short answer · updated
A technical SEO audit costs $900 and is delivered in five days. It is a one-off fee with no retainer attached, and it ends in a fix list ranked by impact and written so your own developer can work through it.
What the $900 contains
A full crawl, index coverage and Core Web Vitals. Structured data that is validated rather than glanced at. Server-log analysis, which shows what crawlers actually fetched rather than what a dashboard estimates. And the deliverable itself: a fix list ranked by impact, written for your developer.
The ranking is the useful part. A free tool lists every warning it can generate; an audit that has read your site says which few of them are costing you pages in search. The first items on it are the ones with the largest effect, so start there.
How the five days run
It starts with access: Search Console and, if you have it, server log access. Then every page, every redirect, every canonical and every blocked resource is crawled. Core Web Vitals are measured on real page loads, structured data is validated, and index coverage is compared against what actually exists on the site.
The last step is the report, a prioritised list in which each item says what to change and why it matters. The five days are counted from the first working day after payment clears and the brief is submitted, and they pause while we wait for access.
What it does not include
Implementing the fixes: the list is written so your developer can do it, or we can quote it separately. Content writing and keyword research beyond what the crawl reveals. Backlink acquisition, which is not sold here at any price. Ongoing monitoring, which is the search retainer at $1,500 a month.
Those exclusions are on the package page before you pay rather than discovered afterwards, which is the quickest test of any audit quote: if the scope cannot be written down as a list with a list of exclusions, the number it is attached to cannot be compared with anything.
Who should buy one
Someone whose traffic dropped, whose new site never got indexed, or who wants to know whether an agency's monthly report is describing real work. A small site is a good case for it: fewer pages to read means more of the five days goes on the problems themselves.
Someone who already knows what is wrong should not buy one. If the problem is a known, single fault, fix it, and keep the $900.
What an audit cannot promise
A position. Where a page ranks depends on what competitors do, what the search engine does next and what the searcher actually wanted, and none of that is ours to control. Our terms say we do not guarantee rankings or traffic, and an audit is not an exception to them.
What is committed to is the list: what is wrong, ranked by impact, with the measurement that found each item, so your own developer can check the work. After that, a fix either moved a number or it did not, and the same crawl can show which.
Worked example
| Scenario | How it adds up | Total |
|---|---|---|
| Technical SEO Audit only | $900 | $900 |
| Technical SEO Audit + 3 months of Search Retainer | $900 + 3 × $1,500 | $5,400 |
| Technical SEO Audit + 6 months of Search Retainer | $900 + 6 × $1,500 | $9,900 |
| Technical SEO Audit + 12 months of Search Retainer | $900 + 12 × $1,500 | $18,900 |
Monthly work is paid monthly in advance and can be stopped at the end of any paid month, so a longer row is a choice made month by month, not a commitment.
Included and not included
What each package lists as included, and what its page lists as not included.
| Package | Included | Not included |
|---|---|---|
| Technical SEO Audit$900 |
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| Search Retainer$1,500/mo |
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What moves the number
- Adds to the total
- Having the fixes implemented, which is quoted separately, and keyword research or content beyond what the crawl reveals
- Pushes it down
- Nothing. $900 is a fixed price, not a starting price
- Changes the timeline, not the price
- How soon Search Console and server log access arrive
Frequently asked questions
Do you fix the problems or just find them?
Find, rank and explain. Fixing is quoted separately, and the list is written so you can hand it to your own developer.
Can you guarantee this will get me to page one?
No, and nobody honest can. Position depends on what your competitors do, what the algorithm does next and what the searcher actually wanted, none of which is ours to control. What the audit guarantees is a list of what is wrong, ranked by impact, with the measurement that found each one so your own developer can check the work.
When do I pay?
Fixed-price work is paid in full before it starts. Monthly work is paid monthly in advance and can be stopped at the end of any paid month. Prices are in US dollars.
When does the delivery clock start?
A delivery time starts on the first working day after payment clears and the project brief is submitted, not on the day of payment. If we are waiting on content, access or feedback from you, the clock pauses for that time.
Can I get a refund?
Before work starts: Full refund, no questions asked. Ask any time before we begin and you get everything back. After work starts, before delivery: You are refunded the part of the project not yet done, assessed against the work completed at that point. If we have finished the design but not the build, you pay for the design and the rest comes back. After delivery: If the delivered work does not match what the package listed, tell us within 14 days. We fix it, and if we cannot, we refund you in full. Deliverables built exactly to the listed scope are not refundable simply because you changed your mind.
What happens after the work is delivered?
One-off projects carry thirty days of fixes at no charge from the day the work is handed over: anything that does not work, or that breaks by itself, is ours to put right. We watch the delivered work over that month rather than waiting to be told. Work you think of later is new work and is quoted separately. Monthly packages have no separate support window because the month you are paying for is the support.
Where these terms are defined
- Web Vitals web.dev (Google)
- Page indexing report Search Console Help
- Intro to how structured data markup works Google Search Central
- How to specify a canonical URL Google Search Central
The packages behind these numbers
Each one lists its full scope, what it excludes and how the work runs.
- Technical SEO Audit Every issue keeping your pages out of search, ranked by impact. $900
- Search Retainer Ongoing search work, measured and reported every month. $1,500/mo
The studio behind them: Search visibility.